British Expats - UKC living in US with a Green card and expecting new baby from USC

Quote:

Originally Posted by sumner59 (Post 9972449)

Hi all,

I am a UK citizen living in the US for the last 4 yrs, I got a green card through my work last year, than I met a US girl and we are expecting our first baby. my upcoming baby will become US citizen automaticlly, but also I need to register my upcoming baby as UK citizen, we are not married yet, but are planning to do so very soon. can any one tell me what to do and the procedures. thanks in advance.

best

You don't actually need to register the birth with the UK authorities. The child is either a UK citizen at birth or it isn't. If you are a UK citizen otherwise than by descent (e.g. you were born in the UK), then your child will be a UK citizen by descent at birth. Whether you go through consular birth registration or not is irrelevant. Also, under the current law, you don't need to be married to pass UK citizenship on to your child.

Make sure that you obtain a FULL ("long form") US birth cert for the child - the one that includes details of both parents. You will need the long form US birth cert to obtain a UK passport for the child. I would also advise that you get multiple copies of the long form US birth cert and store them in different, safe places. Obtain these early because US birth certs issued more than 3 months after birth can sometimes arouse suspicion. This is because US birth records are amended if a child is adopted and so the biological parents may not be the parents named on the US birth cert. It doesn't mean that US birth certs issued more than 3 months after birth won't be accepted - it just means that you might be asked some questions to confirm who the child's biological parents are.

Assuming you are a UK citizen born in the UK, your UK birth cert and the child's long form US birth cert are all you need in order to obtain a UK passport for the child (a "short form" US birth cert won't be acceptable as it does not have parental details).

Some people like consular birth registration for a few reasons:

- it gets around the issue of US birth certs issued more than 3 months after birth
- it makes things easier in later life for the child to prove UK citizenship (e.g. if the parent's UK birth cert has been lost)
- some people also worry that in the future it won't be as easy for children to obtain their parents' UK birth certs.

However, obtaining multiple copies of the US long form birth cert, parental UK birth cert, and good record-keeping should negate these concerns. On the 3rd point, under UK law, birth certs are designated as "public records" and therefore ANYONE can obtain a certified copy of ANYONE ELSE'S UK birth cert. Even if restrictions were ever to be brought in later, I think it's highly unlikely that children would be unable to obtain parental birth certs since these are required for many people to prove their UK citizenship and obtain passports (note: consular birth registration isn't even available to everyone e.g. those born in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland.). Also just obtaining that first UK passport gets you into the system as a confirmed UK citizen. Passport records can be checked just as easily as consular birth records.

Weigh the pros and cons of each approach and pick the one that best suits. Consular birth registration is, strictly speaking, unnecessary and not free - but it does have some advantages.